describing him as a U.S. spy. “Clearly,” she wrote, “there is a threatening U.S.
agenda seeking out our nuclear sites and assassinating people, thereby adding
to our chaos and violence.”38
Mazari angrily blamed the then-U.S. ambassador, Anne Patterson, for her ill
fortune, but soon landed on her feet as the new editor of a staunchly nationalist
paper, The Nation.39 From that new perch, she lashed out again in late 2009
36 See Easterly, “The Political Economy of Growth without Development,” pp. 3–4, 21–2.
37 Shireen Mazari, The Kargil Conflict, 1999: Separating Fact from Fiction (Islamabad: Institute of Strategic Studies, 2003).
38 Quote is taken from Nicholas Schmidle, “Shireen Mazari: The Ann Coulter of Pakistan,” The New Republic, January 8, 2010, http://www.tnr.com/article/world/slander.
39 “Anne Patterson Blocks Shireen Mazari,” Pakistan Daily, September 3, 2009, http://www.daily
.pk/news-break-anne-patterson-blocks-shireen-mazari-10053/.
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The Four Faces of Pakistan
39
by running front-page stories that accused Matthew Rosenberg, a reporter
from the Wall Street Journal, and Daniel Berehulak, a photographer with
Getty Images, of being CIA spies. On November 5, The Nation warned its
readers that “Agents of notorious spy agencies are using journalistic cover
to engage themselves in intelligence activities” in Pakistan’s northwest and
tribal areas.40 Considering that Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in 2002, was also declared a “CIA spy,” the
U.S. embassy in Pakistan feared these allegations were intended as an incitement
to violence.41
Mazari’s worldview begins with the conviction that the United States
is untrustworthy, India is the enemy, and China is Pakistan’s one true
ally.42 In this respect, she reflects a mind-set that runs throughout much of
Pakistan’s military, no matter that tens of billions of dollars in U.S. assistance
and weaponry has flowed to Pakistan over the decades. As explained in the next
chapter, distrust of the United States has roots in the way many Pakistanis think
about U.S. policy over the course of the Cold War, especially Washington’s
“abandonments” in the 1970s and 1990s.
The India Threat
America bashing is Mazari’s favorite sport today, but she – like all other
members of Pakistan’s defense establishment – was raised on a steady diet
of anti-India vitriol that runs to the very core of her being. Popular animosity
toward India flows from Pakistan’s violent birthing process; from the country’s
national identity as a Muslim (read: not Hindu) state; from the Indo-Pakistani
wars of 1947, 1965, and 1971; and from continuing territorial disputes, most
notably over Kashmir. Pakistani officials have justified their nation’s conven-
tional armed forces, nuclear weapons, and even its investments in militant
groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) or the Afghan Taliban by citing the threat
posed by Pakistan’s much larger neighbor.
Pakistan’s army of more than a half-million men serves as its primary defense
against India’s 1.3 million soldiers across the border. In addition, Pakistan
maintains some 300,000 paramilitary soldiers and a reserve force of another
half-million men.43 This makes Pakistan’s armed forces the sixth largest, by
40 Kaswar Klasra, “Journalists as Spies in FATA?” The Nation, November 5, 2009, http://www
.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/politics/05-Nov-2009/Journalis ts-as-spies-in-FATA.
41 Amanda Hodge, “CIA Slur Has Chilling Parallel with Daniel Pearl,” The Australian, November 26, 2009, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/cia-slur-has-chilling-parall el-with-daniel-pearl/story-e6frg6so-1225803878082.
42 Shireen Mazari, “America’s Mala Fide Intent,” Express Tribune, February 25, 2011, http://
tribune.com.pk/story/123887/americas-mala-fide-intent/.
43 The Military Balance 2012, International Institute of Strategic Studies (London: Routledge, 2012), pp. 272–3; “Pakistan Army,” GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/
military/world/pakistan/army.htm.
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40
No Exit from Pakistan
personnel, in the world.44 Even though Taliban-affiliated insurgents have
plagued the nation’s western frontier, the overwhelming bulk of Pakistan’s
military was trained, positioned, and equipped to fight India.
Pakistan has had a difficult relationship with Afghanistan from the time
of independence, owing to unresolved border disputes and the lurking fear
that Pakistani Pashtuns might align with their ethnic compatriots to form
a “greater Afghanistan.” These suspicions would be more than enough to
raise hackles in Islamabad, but Pakistani officers also tend to see an Indian
lurking behind every tree in Afghanistan; they worry that India might use its
influence in Afghanistan to threaten Pakistan’s western flank and set up a two-
front war. Ever since 9/11, Pakistanis have complained to American officials
that Indian spies have set up shop in as many as two-dozen “consulates”
inside Afghanistan, from where they pay informants and undermine Pakistani
interests. Pakistani military briefers have also tended to characterize the Afghan
government of President Karzai as irredeemably pro-Indian.
This has been the principal Pakistani justification for retaining ties with
Afghan Taliban leaders in spite of the fact that such leaders and their groups
are anti-modern, hostile to the lifestyle choices of many top officers in the
Pakistani military, and actively killing U.S., NATO, and Afghan troops. These
are not new relationships; some date back to the anti-Soviet jihad of the
1980s, others to the formation of the Afghan Taliban movement in the mid-
1990s. The ties persist in part because the Afghan fighters are tough, battle-
hardened, and (in several important cases) capable of inflicting great pain on
Pakistan if Islamabad actually decided to turn against them. The ties also
persist because after decades of ruthless, bloody intervention in Afghanistan,
Pakistan has no other Afghan allies, nor even very many potential allies,
but remains committed to the goal of fighting Indian influence by any and
all means. Pakistan’s strategy in Afghanistan has been driven by a combi-
nation of fear, poor options, and a firm conviction that whatever Washing-
ton’s promises of Afghan stability, eventually Pakistan will be left to fend for
itself.
Worse still, some Pakistanis believe that India has been playing nasty tricks
inside Pakistan itself. As Taliban violence spiked inside Pakistan after 2006, the
popular explanation was that the “hidden Hindu hand” was responsible for
the ghastly horrors of suicide attacks on Pakistan’s markets and mosques. “No
Muslim would poss
ibly do such a thing to other Muslims,” was a common
refrain. Other Pakistanis, including some relatively senior army officers, have
explained in euphemistic terms that they are “certain” that many of the fighters
along the Afghan border are Hindus, noting that many of the men they have
killed or captured are uncircumcised. But as a Pakistani reporter from South
Waziristan explained during a visit to Pakistan in December 2008, some of
44 The Military Balance 2012, pp. 467–73.
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The Four Faces of Pakistan
41
the tribes of that area – although Muslim – do not practice circumcision.45
Moreover, the reporter explained, stories of Indian intervention were concocted
by the military to justify unpopular operations in Pakistan’s own tribal areas. In
other words, Pakistani officers were almost certainly suffering from blowback
of their own propaganda.
Even if there are reasons to doubt Pakistani claims about extensive Indian
meddling in the Pashtun tribal areas along the Afghan border, it is undeniable
that India has played sides in Afghanistan. During the 1990s, New Delhi (along
with Moscow and Teheran) supported the anti-Taliban Afghan militias of the
Northern Alliance. That support probably kept Ahmad Shah Massoud, the
“Lion of the Panjshir” and leader of the anti-Taliban alliance, alive and fighting
until al-Qaeda assassinated him just two days before 9/11. Some analysts also
give greater credence to the idea that India has aided other insurgent movements
in Pakistan, foremost among them the Baluch separatists, as a part of its tit-
for-tat spy games with Islamabad. Yet those allegations overstate the level of
support and the extent to which these groups depend upon India’s largesse or
are directed in any way by New Delhi.46
From an outsider’s point of view, one puzzle is why Pakistan feels so threat-
ened by India. A glance at the recent past shows that Indian governments –
whether the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government
that ruled from 1998 to 2004 or the Congress-led coalition that came after it –
have recognized that diplomacy, not war, was the only way to manage relations
with Pakistan. Indians in positions of power view neither military conquest nor
the breakup of Pakistan as realistic or even desirable, despite having suffered
from so many Pakistan-based terrorist attacks. Most Indian strategists see Pak-
istan as a huge mess, not one India would want to inherit even if it had the
military tools to sweep across the border unobstructed. Indian strategists fear
Pakistani instability more than its strength. They are increasingly fixated on
China’s strength and concerned about how it might constrain India’s own rise
to global power status.
These arguments hold little water in Pakistani military circles. First, Pak-
istani officers have clearly been schooled in Otto von Bismarck’s theories of
Realpolitik, for they never tire of explaining that a state must guard against
its adversary’s capabilities, not its intentions. From this perspective, India’s
45 See also Omer Farooq Khan, “Circumcision no Longer Acid Test to Identify Indian Spies,”
Times of India, April 11, 2009, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-04-11/india/
28039644 1 circumcision-waziristan-acid-test.
46 Saeed Shah, “In Remote Balochistan, Pakistan Fights a Shadowy War,” McClatchy Newspapers, March 30, 2012, http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/29/3522817/in-remote-baluchistan-pakistan.html; “No India Role in Balochistan,” Press Trust of India, March 26, 2011, http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Americas/Baloch-separatist-movement-not-fuell ed-by-India-US/Article1-702136.aspx; “Holbrooke Rubbishes Pak’s Baloch Allegations,”
Economic Times, July 31, 2009, http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2009-07-31/
news/28447547 1 balochistan-joint-statement-afghanistan-richard-holbrooke.
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42
No Exit from Pakistan
arsenal is expanding and modernizing, so Pakistan must find a way to keep
pace, no matter that New Delhi routinely characterizes its intentions as defen-
sive and directed toward China more than Pakistan.
In addition, Pakistanis appear to be worried about something far more
sinister than an Indian invasion. They wish to avoid the fate of the smaller
states on India’s periphery – from Nepal and Sri Lanka to Bangladesh – which,
to hear Pakistanis tell it, routinely suffer the indignity of taking dictation from
New Delhi. This is a point of national pride and it runs to the core of Pakistan’s
myth of itself as a homeland for South Asian Muslims. Pakistan’s founders
could not accept the prospect of Hindu political domination within a larger
India; their successors have no greater intention of accepting subordination to
New Delhi today.
Moreover, Pakistan is not content with the way the lines are drawn on South
Asia’s maps. In this respect, Pakistan does not fear Indian aggression so much
mountainous stretch of land due east from Pakistan’s capital, known today
for its recent violence and bloodshed, but once upon a time famous for its
picturesque valley and romantic houseboats on Dal Lake that offered British
colonials a refuge from India’s hot, dusty summers.
At its core, the dissension about Kashmir is a political dispute over who
should govern the majority-Muslim territory that was once ruled by a Hindu
maharaja. India and Pakistan clearly disagree on the answer to that question,
but there is also the complicated issue of what the Kashmiris – a diverse group –
want for themselves.47 Looming above and beyond these issues are Kashmir’s
remarkable geography and topography. Its glaciers feed the rivers that give
life to India and Pakistan alike. As populations grow and glaciers melt, that
water has become increasingly precious. And because Kashmir’s sky-touching
ranges stand at the intersection of India, Pakistan, and China, many unfortu-
nate souls have been lost to the elements in vain attempts to secure the com-
manding heights, even though they offer little discernible military utility. At
18,000 feet, the Siachen glacier, claimed by India and Pakistan, is the world’s
highest battlefield.48 Hundreds of men have died there in temperatures that
routinely drop to fifty below. In the spring of 2012, an avalanche buried a
Pakistani army camp near the glacier, killing 139 soldiers and civilians.
The first two of Pakistan’s three major wars with India centered on Kashmir,
as did the Kargil conflict of 1999 and multiple other crises. Pakistan’s inter-
national diplomacy has at times been thoroughly consumed with the Kashmir
agenda. And, particularly since the late 1980s, Pakistan has aided and abetted
“freedom fighters” in Kashmir, better known to most Indians as terrorists, in
47 Navnita Chadha Behera, Demystifying Kashmir (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2006).
48 Barry Bearak, “The Coldest War: Frozen in Fury on the Roof of the World,” New York Times, May 23, 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/23/world/the-coldest-war-frozen-in-fury-on-the-roof-of-the-world.html?src=pm.
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The Four Faces of Pakistan
43
their violent struggle against the Indian state. None of these costly exercises
has yielded tangible gains; India has shown itself able to absorb the butch-
ery, deliver punishing blows of its own, and bear tremendous costs. Since
1947, tens of thousands of Kashmiris have died in the conflict, and despite
several valiant efforts to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough, it remains a core
Pakistani grievance.49 Given India’s greater size and military power, the conflict
is unlikely ever to be resolved to Pakistan’s full satisfaction.
In its effort to counter India, Pakistan’s military owes a great deal to China.
The very fact of China’s military might is the greatest equalizer in Pakistan’s
stand against India. There is simply no way for Pakistan to keep up with India
on its own, but with an even larger Chinese patron that is willing to share arms
and technology and simultaneously demands the bulk of India’s attention,
Pakistani generals believe they have a fighting chance. Pakistan depends on
Chinese military hardware. Its main battle tank (Al-Khalid), many of its new
fighter jets (JF-17), some of its nuclear warhead blueprints, and several of its
nuclear-capable missiles come from its cooperation with the Chinese.50
Although Pakistan’s last major land war with India is beyond the recollection
of most of its young population, the humiliating loss of 1971 still resonates
with the army’s top brass. The 1965 Indo-Pakistani war featured some of the
largest tank battles since the Second World War.51 Senior military officers
on both sides of the border do not think about another war as a theoretical